Suicide Boy

Suicide Boy was a short webcomic type affair, which ran for five episodes back in 1998, before the phrase 'webcomic' was actually coined.

Written and drawn by Dino Ignacio of Fractalcow (the same guy that brought us Bert is Evil!), the comic uses fairly small layouts, normally with just one or two panels, and a sketchy style, lines overrunning corners and construction lines frequently visible. It's almost universally monochrome, except for a single panel in bright cheery colours which makes a wonderful contrast in the one instance it's used.

The titular hero of the strip, Suicide Boy, is a boy with a problem. His entire purpose in life, it seems, is to die. Something which, the mere continuation of the comic strip tells us, he hasn't yet achieved. It's a brilliant parody of every angsty teen who ever wrote bad goth poetry, and the character form of Suicide Boy and those he encounters (reminiscent of the Canadians in South Park) is visually compelling, the loose forms are jaunty and amusing and the bizarre situations Dino invents provide some endlessly quotable dialogue. The only serious criticisms that can be drawn are against the usually very weak plots, and Suicide Boy's lack of commitment to his raison d'etre.

Mirroring Suicide Boy's lack of a will to live, Dino's will to draw the strip faded quite rapidly, with his intention that the strip be 'sort-of-weekly' going quickly out of the window, with a 4 month hiatus between episode four and the not-at-all-conclusive episode 5. And thus Suicide Boy's strip died long before he himself did.

The strip is still online for your viewing pleasure, at

http://fractalcow.com/suicideboy

For those that don't want to actually bother reading the strips, a spoiler-ridden summary of the episodes follows, after a discreet gap...

Episode 1

The plot:

Suicide Boy, in a monologue to camera (or 'to artist', if you will) introduces us and explains that life sucks, and so he wants to die. He then proceeds to chug down a large bottle of pills with a skull and crossbones label.

Suicide Boy fails to die because:

He has a sudden bout of diarrhoea which purges all the poisons from his system.

Episode 2: Godzilla vs Suicide Boy

The plot:

Suicide Boy grabs his gun and decides to kill himself. Godzilla gatecrashes the comic, and attacks Suicide Boy. After realising his gun is ineffective against Godzilla, Suicide Boy realises that Death By Trampling might be an ideal form of suicide. So he flips the bird and yells "Come on lizard boy! Step on me!"

Suicide Boy fails to die because:

Godzilla doesn't step on him, but over him, much like the scene in the 1998 movie 'Godzilla' where Godzilla steps over the cameraman character.

Episode 3: Suicide Boy meets Happy Boy

The plot:

Suicide Boy has an encounter with Happy Boy, who tries to convince him that life is beautiful and worthwhile, despite whatever reasons he may have for wanting to kill himself. In attempting to discover why Suicide Boy wishes to die, Happy Boy realises that a lot of his own life pretty much sucks, so he grabs Suicide Boy's knife and slits his own throat.

Suicide Boy fails to die because:

He doesn't want to kill himself with a dirty knife.

Episode 4: Suicide Boy Love Story

The plot:

Before attempting to kill himself, Suicide Boy meets a beautiful girl named Louise. Unfortunately for both of them, Louise's knuckleheaded boyfriend arrives and threatens to kill Suicide Boy. Much to Suicide Boy's passivity. Impressed by the fact that he's willing to die for her, Louise takes a shine to our hero. The jealous boyfriend claims that he'd die for her too. So Suicide Boy lends him a hammer, and he drives it into his cranium, with predictably deadly results. Suicide Boy gets the girl and they walk dramatically off into the sunset.

Suicide Boy fails to die because:

Being in love makes life good, or something condescending like that. I think there's a moral to this story or something.

Episode 5: Suicide Boy: Did You Miss Me?

The plot:

Suicide Boy introduces us to his new purchase, the Kill-O-Matic 2000 (As seen on TV). It's a horribly beweaponed and deadly contraption, with heart-piercing aparatus, diarrhoea enhancers, Celine Dion amplifiers, leg hair removers and vomit inducers (Teletubbies). With a flourish, Suicide Boy steps in and activates the machine.